by Lori Woods
Flight To Remember
A Petite Savannah Mystery
Lori Woods
Copyright © 2019 by Lori Woods
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Afterword
Description
Marionette is only a few weeks away from her wedding day, and she and her girls are headed to Vegas. Things start off a little bumpy as they are separated on the flight, only for it to take a turn for the worse when a passenger falls over dead.
Can Marionette, Molly, Roxie, and Amaya discover the true culprit before they land in Nevada, or will Marionette’s bachelorette party be spoiled before they even make it to their destination?
Chapter 1
It was a warm summer day, and Savannah, Georgia, had finally left the last of its occasional bouts of cold weather behind. The air smelled of freshly cut grass, and the pollen had at last been washed away by the late spring showers. It was a perfect day for working outside, and that was just what Marionette and her fiancé, Thomas, had set themselves to doing at the sight of their future home.
Marionette had moved into the old French-style home after being given a bit of grief from her previous landlord; Thomas would be moving in after their wedding in June, but they still had plenty of work to do to make the place their own. For one thing, the old porch had fallen apart when they had first bought the property. It had not so much had fallen apart as it had been tampered with by a neighbor who wanted the property for himself and was attempting to scare them off. The man, thankfully, had gotten caught for his misdeeds after an elderly neighbor had gotten crushed by the falling porch, and he was no longer a burden to them or anyone else in the neighborhood. It was now behind them, and now that they had moved on from the rather traumatizing incident, they at last felt up to the remodel.
Thankfully for them, their neighbor across the street, a man by the name of Enrique, was a rather handy fellow. He owned his own construction business, and he worked mostly with specialized projects like the porch. Enrique and Thomas were both hard at work on putting some of the final touches on the new porch, paintbrushes in hand after finally having nailed down the last of the wood fixtures that morning before the sun had gotten too high in the sky. Marionette had stared up at the grill only a few moments ago, deciding to take a break from painting and to instead get going on lunch for them all.
A handful of small steaks now lined the grill – one of the many thank-you dishes she had made for Enrique who was only charging them for the materials needed for this large project. “How do you want your steak cooked, Enrique?” she asked in her usual French accent. She smiled at him, feeling thankful for everything he had done for them this season. He stood up for them when they had first moved in and another neighbor had been less than friendly, he helped Marionette with an art booth at an event, and now he was doing their porch at the cost of their materials. The man had hardly known them, but he had proven to be a fantastic neighbor already. The sort of person who would give you the shirt off his back even if it was all he had to his name. He very much reminded Marionette of her future husband, Thomas, in that way.
“Medium’s fine,” he said, looking up at her from the porch and wiping his brow. “Thanks, Marionette.”
“Medium-rare for me, love,” Thomas responded, his red hair popping up from around the railing. He had specks of the white paint all in his hair from when Enrique had dropped his brush earlier. Thomas was a tall, well-built Scottish man with a thick accent to match. He was soft spoken for Scottish man, but he had opened up quite a bit around Enrique who had been nothing but kind to them since learning that they were to become neighbors.
“I know the way you like your steak, Thomas,” Marionette assured him with a smile. She flipped the steaks. “I’m going to let these sit for a second so I can go let Roxie out of her cage for a bit.” Marionette slipped inside for a moment where she could already hear her ugly, fat bird Roxie squawking away. Her friend Molly had a well-trained pet parakeet named Whammy who had mated with what they could only assume to be a pigeon. Whammy’s wild night on the town had resulted in a number of pretty-looking oversized parakeets, though Marionette had somehow wound up with the ugly duckling of the bunch. She had named her Roxie after a woman who had saved her life. Her bird Roxie was quite large like a pigeon and instead of having the bright colors of a parakeet, it merely looked as though the gray pigeon color had blended with the greens and yellows, making her look rather puke-like in tone. Either way, ugly or not, Marionette had grown rather fond of the bird.
She released Roxie from her cage. Much like her mother before her, Roxie had inevitably become well-trained. She was able to open up the back door and let the bird free where it flew around the yard for a bit while Marionette finished up with the steaks. “What does Roxie think about you naming that ugly thing after her?” Enrique asked; he was at last cleaning up some of the paint materials alongside Thomas.
“She is not a fan,” Marionette admitted. “When we thought she was going to be a pretty little bird I think she was more into the idea. Now it seems more like an insult than a way of honoring her.”
It was still rather hard to imagine how they had become friends with Roxie – the human Roxie, that is. Marionette, who owned an art shop on River Street, had recently started renting a back room out to a former cop named Kris. Kris had started up his own private detective agency out of the back of the art shop, and during an undercover incident in which Marionette and her friend Molly had tagged along, they had met the illegal underground street racer, Roxie. While Roxie had supposedly backed off doing illegal races since beginning a newfound relationship with Kris, she was still a woman who was rather rough around the edges compared to other women Marionette tended to hang around.
“Roxie is going with them this weekend,” Thomas told Enrique as they finished closing up the paint cans and began lingering near the grill.
“That’s right,” Enrique said, glancing Marionette’s way for only a moment. “This weekend is the bachelorette party.”
Marionette beamed. “Molly planned the whole thing, and she just told me where we will be going.”
Thomas sighed. “She is takin’ the girls ta Las Vegas for a bit of gambling and likely poor behavior.”
“Oh, my,” Enrique said with a bit of laughter. “Poor behavior, you say? I have a hard time imagining Marionette acting like a wild girl in Vegas.”
“Yer probably right in tha’ assumption,” Thomas said. “I’m marryin’ a good girl.”
Marionette pulled the steaks off the grill, plopping them down onto plates. She had also grilled up some corn on the cob to go along with them. After pouring each of them a glass of tea, they sat down on some of the old patio furniture that was currently littering the backyard to eat. “We’re staying at Caesar’s Palace,” Marionette said excitedly. “It is going to be a fun weekend.”
“Who all is going?” Enrique asked.
“Well, Molly, of course,” Marionette said. Molly was her maid of honor; she hadn’t known Molly for too long, but they had become close. Their shops were right next to one another; Molly owned a dessert shop on River Street. Originally, Marionette had an o
ld friend she had met when she first arrived in the United States, but that friend had made quite a bit of trouble at her engagement party. Marionette had given the woman the boot for some of her lewd behavior. “Roxie will be there, and so will Amaya.”
Amaya was a long-time friend. She had come into Marionette’s shop when it had first opened up years ago and, upon discovering that they were both French, had sparked up a conversation rather quickly. Now, years later, Amaya was still her one and only employee at the art shop. Amaya, unlike Marionette, was born in the United States and lacked the French accent that her father had, but she was just as French as Marionette at the end of the day – something they bonded over quite often.
“Sounds like you are going to have a lot of fun,” Enrique said. “What about you, Thomas? You got anything planned while your madam is out of town?”
Thomas shrugged. “Friends are talking about going to Helen this weekend. Rent a cabin. Ya busy, Enrique? Ya could tag along.”
Enrique smiled, clearly very satisfied to have been invited along. “That sounds like a lot of fun, actually. My summer jobs haven’t started kicking off just yet, so I can clear my schedule this weekend easy.”
“Perfect,” Thomas said. “Would be glad to have ya there, then. Yer gonna like my friends, I think. Jeffrey and Kris are gonna be there, and ya know them.”
“I can’t believe how soon the wedding is,” Marionette said excitedly. “Less than a month away! We’ve got so much to between now and then. Molly’s got the catering down, thankfully. I don’t have to worry about any of that.”
“So she’s your maid of honor and catering for the event?” Enrique asked. “That’s quite a handful, don’t you think?”
“If anyone can handle it, it’s Molly,” Marionette said. “But she has a whole team helping her. She is just doing most of the prep work as far as the catering is concerned. The day of the wedding she’ll be focused on maid of honor duties – she won’t be in the kitchen cooking or anything like that.”
“I would hope not,” Enrique said. “I’ve met Molly. She’s impressive, but she is only able to do so much.” He then turned to Thomas. “So,” he said excitedly. “What are we doing in Helen?”
Thomas laughed, his mouth full of steak. “Knowing Thomas,” Marionette sang, answering for him. “You’ll be pub hopping.”
“I like anything European, and Helen is full of German cuisine,” Thomas said. “Pretty authentic for a city in Georgia, if you ask me. I love the place – and we might just take a tour down the river on an innertube while we’re thar.”
“Is it really authentic, Thomas?” Enrique asked.
“Thomas is so right,” Marionette insisted. “We went to Helen on a trip together last year. It’s wonderful. You would really like it, Enrique.”
“Then I’m glad I’ve managed to snag myself an invitation,” he said, taking another bite of steak. “Just so you know, this steak is amazing.”
“I try,” Marionette said. “I’ve got my final dress fitting when we come back from Vegas, you know? Then after that we’re really going to be counting down the days until the wedding. I can hardly believe it.”
“What else do you guys need to take are of?” Enrique asked.
“I’m not even sure,” Marionette said. “I’m mostly worried about everyone who is going to be flying in from out of the country and making sure their hotel rooms are set up and ready to go. My parents and Thomas’s parents will be staying here, of course. But we’ve got all sorts of relatives coming in from Scotland and France. It’s stressing me out just thinking about it.”
“Who all is coming in that needs arrangements?” Enrique asked.
“So far I’ve got several aunts and uncles. A handful of cousins. Friends from back home,” Marionette yawned tiredly thinking about it. “Thomas has family coming in as well. His grandparents, for one. I just don’t want anyone to be inconvenienced any more than they already are going to be flying in from out of the country.”
“Well,” Enrique said, smiling. “Allow me to open up my home. If there’s anything that goes wrong with hotel arrangements, I’ve got two guest rooms I’m not using for anything other than storage. I don’t see why not – plus it would be a lot more convenient for them to stay close, right?”
“That is too sweet, Enrique,” Marionette said, already feeling much better. “Don’t know what we would do without you, honestly.”
“You wouldn’t have a porch, for one,” he said, laughing and nodding up towards the work they had at last completed that day. He looked very proud of it, and Marionette could see why. He had done a fantastic job on that porch. He smiled and held up his glass of tea. “Here’s to the future bride and groom.”
“Here, here!” Thomas cried, holding up his glass as well.
Marionette smiled and held up her glass. “Thanks, Enrique.” She leaned over and gave Thomas a kiss on the cheek.
Chapter 2
Marionette gave her husband-to-be several goodbye kisses as he dropped them all off at the airport in Atlanta. “Have fun, ladies,” he said politely as ever. “Bring her back in one piece, all right?”
“Never,” Amaya said, giving him a wink.
Thomas left them, shaking his head and grumbling a bit about Vegas. “I am so excited!” Marionette exclaimed. “C’est super! Je suis vraiment enthousiaste. I cannot wait to see Vegas. I have always wanted to go.”
“It’s going to be a blast,” Molly promised them. “I hate that we weren’t able to bring Whammy and Roxie, though.”
“I’m right here,” Roxie said, standing near them with a scowl on her face – an expression she wore most days even when she was in a fabulous mood like today. It was just sort of the way Roxie’s face fell unless she was experiencing a sudden moment of excitement. Even then her face usually fell right back into a cold expression.
“I was referring to the birds,” Molly said and laughed.
“Right,” Roxie said, her lips curling up ever so slightly before falling back down once again. “I keep forgetting you named your bird after me. I’ve got to say I’m not a fan.”
“Sorry,” Marionette said. “She was pretty when she was a baby and I named her that. Then she just got all fat and ugly.”
“Let’s hope that’s not telling for me,” Roxie said, smirking slightly and throwing her bag over her shoulder. “I appreciate the invite, by the way.”
The four of them strutted through the airport together, chatting excitedly about the upcoming adventure they had before them. “So, is Kris going with Thomas this weekend, Roxie?” Amaya asked.
“How should I know?” Roxie questioned.
“Oh… are you two not dating anymore?” Amaya asked.
“Oh, we are,” Roxie said. “We’re pretty casual still, though. I’m not really all up in his business just yet. We’ve only been on one date.”
“Well, then looks like the next lady who’s going to be getting hitched must be Ms. Molly, then,” Amaya teased.
Molly laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I sense gossip,” Marionette said as they settled down in the boarding area. Gossip was something Marionette was particularly fond of. She felt positively giddy at the prospect of hearing something worth retelling and doting on for a while. “Do tell, Molly. How are you and Officer Jeffrey doing?”
Molly blushed slightly. “Well, honestly, things are pretty serious. Been dating for over a year now. And I’m really… oh, no…”
“What?” Roxie questioned, spinning around in her seat. Their flight had been delayed, according to the large flashing sign above the check-in desk.
“Hold on, let me go find out what’s going on,” Molly said and dipped out for a moment. When she returned, she had the unfortunate news of stating that there was debris blown all over the takeoff field during some wind they had had earlier in the day. The flight was delayed for the next hour at least and they were waiting to board.
“Why don’t we go get food at one of the restaurants,
then?” Roxie suggested, and this seemed a grand scheme to them all. Marionette’s stomach, for one, gave a lurch at the very mention of food, and she nodded with great enthusiasm.
They settled down, their carry-on luggage under their chairs, at a sandwich shop. Here, gossip commenced. “So,” Marionette sang. “You were telling us how Jeffrey is going to propose soon?”
“I most certainly was not!” Molly exclaimed, and she laughed. “But things are getting pretty serious. We’ve certainly… well… talked about it.”
“Ah! I knew it,” Marionette said, clapping her hands together.
“Looks like she is going to be the next to get hitched,” Amaya said and then sighed. “I’ll be last, of course. I have no one.”
“I take things slow. Like glacier slow,” Roxie said, shoveling her sandwich into her mouth. “You’ll beat me to it, I promise. I’m not in a hurry.”
Amaya laughed. “Well, we’ll see. I do know one thing; I’m going to have the most fun in Vegas as I am the only single one in the group.”
“Don’t pick up a man in Vegas,” Roxie warned. “Trust me.”
“Are you speaking from experience, Roxie?” Molly asked.
“What stays in Vegas does not always stay in Vegas,” Roxie said bitterly. “Let’s just say those marriage licenses carry over.”
“Wait… what?” Marionette yelped.
“Alcohol and Roxie do not mix,” Roxie said. “Don’t worry. I got it annulled.”
“Does Kris know about this?” Amaya asked.
“Um, no?” Roxie said. “I told you. We’re casual. We don’t talk a lot about personal stuff yet. We’ve only been on one date. Not going to bring up the fact I got hammered and married to a stranger in Vegas on the first date.”